Julian Assange - Also neoliberal utopian

A post from By Strategy detailing the neoliberal politics of Julian Assange, and how they may relate to the wider Wikileaks project.

This week has been an especially depressing time to be on the left. I do not wish to spill any more bytes on the question of Assange and rape and the terrible reaction of the wider left to this where others have made the point so well. What I do want to question a fundamental assumption made by many of the left that Assange’s personal philosophy which animates his involvement in the Wikileaks project is “of the left” and that it should be therefore be embraced. This seems to be the guiding impression one takes from many of the pro-Wikileaks writings or speeches, particularly from prominent leftist celebrities like John Pilger, Tariq Ali, Tony Benn and Noam Chomsky. That Assange is “of the left” partly by virtue of him being nebulously “anti-imperialist” seems to be one of the reasons for trenchent support of him and the belief that since he is “of the left” it is difficult to imagine him so morally compromised. However, I think it is clear that Assange’s politics are not recognisably leftist.

It is important to remember that Assange’s opinions on what Wikileaks is and his person and politics do not exhaust everything Wikileaks is about.1 Indeed, the internal political beliefs of figures involved with Wikileaks other than Assange are opaque considering his own comparitive public prominence. This also leaves open the question of the political effect of Wikileaks, quite apart from its co-founders vision. Additionally, on a wider view, hacker culture and the free and open source movements often associated with it from which Wikileaks draws some of its animus are themselves highly politically ambigious. Hacker culture leans both in the direction of pure market libertarianism2 and communism, sometimes doing the latter when it believes it is doing the former. Yet, the recognition that Assange’s personal politics and vision for Wikileaks are not recognisably leftist and tend rather towards endorsement of a utopian vision of the status quo, rather than an opposition to it, is an important fact to bear in mind. Assange’s politics are neoliberalism’s ideal image of itself, entirely consistent with its politics to the extent that it radicalises them. Yet, for the preceding reasons, in the following Wikileaks should be considered to stand in for “Julian Assange’s interpretation of Wikileaks”. However, it should be noted that since Assange’s problems with Swedish authorities began, the stance which seperates him from the organisation to which be belongs is something that has become more and more difficult to maintain.

Assange’s most lengthy articulation of his own politics comes in a lengthy interview with Forbes. Asked “Would you call yourself a free market proponent?”, Assange replies “Absolutely. I have mixed attitudes towards capitalism, but I love markets”. The stance that is ambigious to capitalism, but in favour of markets represents the more extreme variants of neoliberalism, whereby capitalism (while it actually exists) plays second fiddle to an idealied vision of how markets function avaliable on a minor scale within currently existing capitalism. Assange continues: “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information…For a market to be free, people have to know who they’re dealing with”. How does Wikileaks fit into this scenario? For Assange, through the act of leaking information, Wikileaks is providing better information in order for the market of international politics to work better. The question of informational asymmetry is a complex one in neoliberal circles, with a long history. Whereas neoliberalism in the variant of the Chicago School of Economics tends towards a model of equillibrium where actors have perfect information about the market, the Austrian school of Economics, favoured by the more radical anarcho-capitalist believe that information is unevenly distributed throughout a market system, and that to increase overall information enables better price setting thus improving the efficency of the market.

Assange’s philosophy here blends Austrian and Chicago School approaches. Accepting the Austrian approach of informational assymetry as the current situation, but believing that increased distribution of knowledge as a result of leaking would tend towards the Chicago assumption of perfect information. In the situation of perfect information3, so runs the theory demonstrated mathematically by Keith Arrow and Gérard Debreu, then market transactions will tend towards a Pareto optimal state, where no actor can be made better off without making another worse off - a state that is a mathematical formalisation of Adam Smith’s notion of the “invisible hand”. Hence “WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical”. “It’s not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I’ve learned from many”, says Assange. “But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian, but I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free”. One could say a deal about the various mutations of neoliberal theory on monopoly here and their rejection in certain schools of neoliberalism of the notion of a tendency toward monopoly. However, Assange comments that setting up institutions is required. One could perhaps read this in a modern social democractic manner, that the market is a powerful force that requires taming for the good of the majority of society. However, Assange’s stance is essentially neoliberal - that institutions primarily exist to provide the frameworks for efficient market transaction. To continue to break monopolies and ensure the market is able to work efficently, as it is the perfect information processing system and therefore resource allocation mechanism.4

Assange’s background prior to Wikileaks included his heavy involvement with emerging cypherpunk groups, whose major interest was the philosophical, political and sociological impact of strong cryptography. Though with some political diversity, the major cypher punk e-mail lists lent heavily towards libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism, particular towards crypto-anarchy, their own coinage, a species of market anarchism that uses heavy cryptography to avoid survilence of the state and conduct market transactions, the most recent articulation of which being Bitcoin. Tim May’s cypher-punk FAQ states that he believes the output of strong cryptography sociographically ‘will be a form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call “cryptoanarchy”’. Cryptography essentially means market capitalism where the state cannot concievably intervene, since its operatation are totally obscure to it. Tim May writes that “the ‘anarchy’ here is not the anarchy of popular conception: lawlessness, disorder, chaos, and “anarchy.” Nor is it the bomb-throwing anarchy of the 19th century “black” anarchists, usually associated with Russia and labor movements. Nor is it the “black flag” anarchy of anarcho-syndicalism and writers such as Proudhon. Rather, the anarchy being spoken of here is the anarchy of “absence of government” (literally, “an arch,” without a chief or head)…This is the same sense of anarchy used in “anarchocapitalism,” the libertarian free market ideology which promotes voluntary, uncoerced economic transactions”. Though he no longer wishes to call himself a hacker, Assange’s politics are soaked in this paradigm.

Apart from Assange’s personal politics, this concern for neoliberal informational politics bleeds into problematic nature of Wikileaks as a project in Assange’s articulation. Here, the vital source is Kittens’ critique of Wikileaks entitled ‘WikiLeaks - the state persecutes its idealists’. Rather, I wish to suggest that it is neoliberalism is the economic and political philosophy whose politics Wikileaks’ most clearly resemble.

The centre of the critique is that, for Kittens, Wikileaks subscribes to two false ideas. The first that if something is successfully exposed, then something will be done about it, that exposure promotes resistance to the current state of affairs. But the fact remains that Wikileaks only exposed what was already well known about the war on terror. That potentially millions of people have died as the result of Western imperialist excursions particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Wikileaks did nothing more than add more evidence to the substantial pile that the global ruling class is tightly knit and does not play by its own self-presented rules in the field of finance. That American foreign policy is conducted in the nation’s self interest and that its view of other nation states is rather less than one might summise from its official communications. And so on, simply put, “most of the data that reached the public through WikiLeaks only confirmed what everybody knew already”. This is a common tactic outside of Wikileaks, indeed, Assange’s defenders on the Left such as Noam Chomsky also subscribe to this vision - successful exposure of the facts about the situation of global capitalism will, among other things, lead somehow to its defeat. In this instance, Kittens correctly highlights that, pace Zizek’s critique of Chomsky, that facts are not self-interpreting, but read through ideology. A right winger could happily accept the slaughter in Iraq but say this was the lamentable consequences of a neccessary war, indeed, this was the reaction of many right wingers to Wikileaks’ ‘revelations’. Certainly there is a value in exposing the contradictions in ruling class ideology, but exposing contradictions remains at the level of ideology itself, rather than the battleground of material class struggle. Moreover, the greatest and most obvious of crimes often occur openly, sometimes without even a gloss of ideology, and yet do not cause dissent. Whistleblowing traditionally refers to highlighting a unknown problem in a supposedly smoothly running system - Wikileaks for the most part brought no especially new information into circulation.

What Kittens do not do is link this desire for transparency, openess and avoidance of corruption to their basis in free market ideology. Rather, Kittens note that Wikileaks’ aims towards transpency are entirely consistent with the idea of the modern American-style democractic state - openess, checks and balances, the avoidance of corruption - and that “WikiLeaks’ fight against corruption indicates support in principle for those organisations once they are free of corruption”. The US and other democratic states are “running a campaign against people who have the highest admiration for its principles”. To which I add: Kittens have misinterpreted Wikileaks as a project in line with the classical self-presentation of the liberal democractic state founded on the balance of powers and so on. In Assange’s reading of his own organisation, this openess is not animated by a care for the classical principles of liberal democracy, but rather for the neoliberal principles of free information on open markets.

2. Of course, Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia is a libertarian and very much a fan of Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek’s theses on information.

3. There are of course other factors required for Pareto optimality: no externalities to markets and no transaction costs and markets are at full equilibrium.

4. It is interesting that groups so squarely critical of certain approaches from the autonomist Marxist tradition for their technological positivity, mainly Trotskyite parties, should give Assange’s philosophy a mostly free pass. Whereas autonomist Marxists such as Hardt and Negri and Paolo Virno theorise the possibilities of antagonism in the reformed proletariat as a result of the recomposition of capital in post-Fordism, Assange openly celebrates post-Fordist capitalism as the primary vector of human freedom if properly improved by becoming more marketised.

Wikileaks subscribes to two false ideas. The first that if something is successfully exposed, then something will be done about it, that exposure promotes resistance to the current state of affairs. But the fact remains that Wikileaks only exposed what was already well known about the war on terror.

By Strategy

Attached files

Comments

Spikymike

Aug 27 2012 16:27

Adds some useful and valid analysis to the critique in Kittens. So Assange and Wikileaks are idealists of the 'neo-liberal free market' as opposed to idealists of the 'regulated or controlled market' that is 'the left' represented by the quoted authors and equally it seems the 'depressed leftist' author of this text?

Thanks for the link to the Bruton paper. Reading through that, I think you have made a mistake in relegating to a footnote the "leaks as destabilising weapons against conspirators" part of Assange's thinking. The Bruton paper makes the case, and I would agree, that this is the "primary purpose of a leaks-driven project, with ‘scientific journalism’ being a positive second-order effect." Assange's writing's, which you have linked to, give weight to this interpretation. The Bruton paper has a solid analysis of this aspect of Wikileaks' work and Assange's thinking; there is also a readable essay on it here.

It is unclear to me how much you agree with the Kittens piece - that is whether you are paraphrasing it, or stating as fact, the following:

Quote:

But the fact remains that Wikileaks only exposed what was already well known about the war on terror. That potentially millions of people have died as the result of Western imperialist excursions particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Wikileaks did nothing more than add more evidence to the substantial pile that the global ruling class is tightly knit and does not play by its own self-presented rules in the field of finance. That American foreign policy is conducted in the nation’s self interest and that its view of other nation states is rather less than one might summise from its official communications. And so on, simply put, “most of the data that reached the public through WikiLeaks only confirmed what everybody knew already”.

This statement reduces Wikileaks' work to being only the Iraq and Afghanistan material and the diplomatic cables (the contents of the diplomatic cables, in fact, have deeply affected politics in the Middle East and Latin America) In fact the organisation has been operational since 2006, in which time it has (in its own words) "released more classified documents than the rest of the world's press combined," won the 2008 Index on Censorship "Freedom of Expression" award and the 2009 Amnesty International "Human Rights Reporting" award. Wikipedia has a large page titled "Information Published By Wikileaks" and Wikileaks themselves have a page about their history and past releases.

You conclude:

Quote:

What Kittens do not do is link this desire for transparency, openess and avoidance of corruption to their basis in free market ideology [...] To which I add: Kittens have misinterpreted Wikileaks as a project in line with the classical self-presentation of the liberal democractic state founded on the balance of powers and so on. In Assange’s reading of his own organisation, this openess is not animated by a care for the classical principles of liberal democracy, but rather for the neoliberal principles of free information on open markets.

I don't think this holds up when you look at Assange's writing and interviews. He seems motivated by purely idealistic humanist aims:

Quote:

"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice.

If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.

If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whose hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes.
The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."

(blog post from 2007 - note that he has placed a quotation from Gustav Landauer at the very top of his webpage, I don't think many neoliberals do that!)

Quote:

Society has grown beyond our ability to perceive it accurately. Our brains are not adapted to the environment in which we find outselves [sic]. We can’t predict important aspects of our societal environment. It’s not designed to run on our brains. We’re maladapted. In our evolu¬tionary history we spent a lot of time tracking the behavior and reputations of small number of people we saw frequently. If we want some of the social benefits that a small society brings then we need computational crutches so when A fucks over B any C considering dealing with A will know. A society that can ‘think’ in this way is able to route goodness to people who do good and away from those people who generate hurt. The decision as to what is good is too complicated to be formulated in regulation and elections are a very coarse ex¬pression of what people think is good. Any paper formulation will put power in the hands of a political and technocratic elite. Robust routing decisions must be made by individuals and individuals need tools to manage complexity enough so they can make them effectively in a modern society.

(blog post from 2006)

Quote:

Later we will see how new technology and insights into the psychological motivations of con¬spirators can give us practical methods for preventing or reducing important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance.

(from "Conspiracy as Governance")

Quote:

people determined to be in a democracy, to be their own governments, must have the power that knowledge will bring – because knowledge will always rule ignorance. You can either be informed and your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you. [...] I believe that if we look at what makes a civilization civilized, it is people understanding what is really going on. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the end result was that people who knew something of what was going on could convey that information to others. And as a result of the Internet, we are now living in a time where it's a lot easier to convey what we know about our corner of the world and share it with others.

The idea that neoliberalism has an intellectual monopoly on the free flow of information, simply because such exchange is needed for free markets to work, is as false as saying that fascism has an intellectual monopoly on propaganda against "enemies of the state" because that is needed for fascism to exist. Any kind of free and just society must be based on the informed consent of those participating in it, so support of free exchange of information is not in itself an indicator of neoliberalism.

As the article points out, many celebrities of the left have voiced their support for Assange, which makes me ask, have any 'celebrities' in the right-wing done so? I'm genuinely curious as I'm not connected to those circles.

Apologies if this was asked and/or answered in the above; I didn't read the whole thing.

Wikileaks subscribes to two false ideas. The first that if something is successfully exposed, then something will be done about it, that exposure promotes resistance to the current state of affairs. But the fact remains that Wikileaks only exposed what was already well known about the war on terror.

Quote:

something will be done about i t= promotes resistance to the current state of affairs

how can we measure resistance?

Quote:

what was already well known about the war on terror:

does concrete information change cinism? or is concrete information devoured and assimilated to the pile of useless information the ruling ideology needs in order to perpetuate the current status?

Info

The libcom library contains nearly 20,000 articles. If it's your first time on the site, or you're looking for something specific, it can be difficult to know where to start. Luckily, there's a range of ways you can filter the library content to suit your needs, from casual browsing to researching a particular topic. Click here for the guide.

Log in for more features

Can comment on articles and discussions Get 'recent posts' refreshed more regularly Bookmark articles to your own reading list Use the site private messaging system Start forum discussions, submit articles, and more...